Owners. Builders. Designers
Nov 28/23
by Michael Copas
The above tagline has been with Statslog software, almost from the beginning. It expressed the idea that everyone in the project team was doing the same thing only from their own perspective.
Owners. Builders. Designers. This tagline has been with Statslog software, almost from the beginning. It expressed the idea that everyone in the project team was doing the same thing only from their own perspective.
Expanded that means that Project Manager, Sub-trade, Designer from every discipline, and Supplies of all kinds, not necessarily part of the Construction Agreement, are monitoring progress and managing change. Fast forward 30 years and the trending term is Collaboration. Statslog has always agreed with sharing data about the project, but the caveat was ‘sharing your data’. The idea of simply contributing to a data set for someone else, was, and is still wrong headed. But that is the path now being taken by a multitude of Owners, and Builders and their related software solutions. Statslog has decided to turn that corner and now instead of our tagline being for “Owners—Builders—Designers”, we are for “Design Professionals Only”.
The reality is the three primary partners in a construction project have always kept their own data, it is only recently that Owners and Builders are vying for supremacy in the data-sphere. Contractor software solutions are becoming more lineal and and less flexible, are hard coding workflows. This exacerbates conflict of interest, rather than relieving it, which is the spin being offered. Owners, for their part, are demanding more data entry by project partners with little or no reciprocal access to that data. These actions simply increase self-serving determination and denial of contract roles and responsibilities. For design professionals it is a reduction in authority, fee, or relief from liability from their legislated public role.
I will offer two recent examples of the above.
Statslog has been asked by two different clients to review and comment on public institutions requiring their designers to enter data into proprietary forms, from which they only have rights to copy that form. This means that the design profession, in order to have a record of all issued forms, has to re-enter the data elsewhere. These are two different government agencies in different provinces, so the trend is widespread. The other example are Builders who seem unrestricted by long existing norms of behavior and even laws. In one case, selective use of legislative holdback is one action which has no support in law, but is widely practiced. Another case is a demand for a re-stating of an account issued and certified months earlier. Rational as the argument may be, they encourage flexibility in lieu of good practice. In both cases the most at risk is the Certifier of record, whomever that might be, but usually a design professional.
So, is there an answer to these conditions? It would seem the only answer is for design professionals to be even more diligent and determined in contract administration. The authority is in legislation, which is a higher authority than Contract, and therefore secure. The motivation is Risk reduction which is significant. In spite of the fact that Fees will still be restricted, in the run, this role-based positioning can only help when/if litigation is pursued.
If this does not sound very encouraging, consider the alternatives. Continuing fee reduction, contribution to others without reciprocation. services without fees, risk exposure, and a general erosion of the professionals role in society.
Michael Copas is a co-founder of Statslog Software Corporation, which has been providing continuing service to contract administrators in the offices of design professionals since 1984.